


Le Chiffre

by CMDAK



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: M/M, Suspicious Alec Trevelyan, Suspicious James Bond, Waiter Q
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-07 10:12:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13432530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CMDAK/pseuds/CMDAK
Summary: It is very rare for spies to find that one perfect, neutral drop off point that they could all agree upon so it is only natural that they wouldn't want to abandon it when they discover a mole in it - especially if the suspected mole is a sweet and nice waiter named Q that seems to have a crush on the dashing James Bond.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GhostCaravan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostCaravan/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fell in love with the picture when I saw it and my muse was instantly on it!
> 
> Please make sure to drop by this awesome artist's tumblr to admire their work: crystalwitcher.

                                                    

 

He rearranged his annoying bowtie that always took ages to get right in the morning and dusted off his apron, groaning when he realized that the white stuff he had on it wasn’t coming out. But he’ll be damned if he was going to let some flour make him look ridiculous and since a quick glance around the busy room in search of someone with a clean apron revealed that everyone was covered in the stuff, all he could do was wipe his as good as he could.

 

“Oh, well if he has you doing this in the middle of the kitchen, I just have to see how he looks like,” the busboy muttered as he pushed him to the side to peek through the small, round window out in the main dining area. “Don’t tell he’s the old man with the bald spot, Q! I thought you’d have better tastes than that,” he scolded, tapping the angry man’s lightly as he did so.

 

In all fairness, calling Alec a busboy wasn’t exactly right from the point of view of his age since he was seven years Q’s senior, but you couldn’t call him busman either due to the fact that he was acting like a seven year old who was your younger brother would – always teasing Q, always tugging him in this or that direction despite knowing that he was told to do something important, always invading his personal space to check what he was doing, always asking question after question about something that was considered personal, and always being one step behind him, practically clinging to his apron while playing his ‘I’m new here so don’t shake me off of you’ card.

 

He was, perhaps, the only legal bus- _child_ in existence and strangely enough, that wasn’t what annoyed Q about him. No, what really drove him insane was that despite his immature behaviour, Alec was more than capable, proved that he could pulled his own weight when it came to his job as well of that of others – that no longer worked at the restaurant – understood what was needed from him even before it was said, and he was one of the most helpful and understanding co-worker Q had ever had.

 

“Alec, you _know_ he’s not—”

 

“Or is it the woman with her own flotation device that’s enjoying lunch with her grandfather?” Alec interrupted him, pushing his face closer to the door before suddenly pulling a disgusted face. “I got some bad news for you, Q; you’re not old enough for her taste.”

 

“She’s too _woman_ to be my type, so don’t worry about it,” Q muttered, having a hard time forming proper words due to him pretty much Frenching the door at this point.

 

“Then which one is it?” Alec asked with a smile on his lips that could put the Cheshire cat out of business because one really didn’t really have a younger brother unless the pest caught wind of a secret crush and then spent endless hours teasing one about it. “Please don’t tell me that it’s one of the married ones because that’s just a heartbreak waiting to happen or that one guy at table five that’s discussing how much his services for the night cost because, Q, you can’t afford his tight little ass.”

 

Alec’s fascinating little made up stories got interrupted by the door being rather violently pushed in, smashing the two of them up against the wall. “Table fifteen needs to have their glasses refilled, table three still has plates that need to be cleaned up, and no one has greeted table seven, so I highly doubt you two have time to act like clowns,” the Maître d’hôtel all but growled, his foot tapping becoming louder the more Q spent trying to make himself look presentable again. “You if I hear a single complaint coming for table seven, I will never allow you to switch every again, Q!” He snapped before turning to the uncaring Alec. “As for you, Alec… How many times—?”

 

Alec’s usual scolding was drowned out by the mixing of the main dining room’s low murmur with the soft music playing in the background and Q took a moment to rearrange his hair and bowtie before turning his attention to his table, heart skipping a beat when he his eyes connected with amused blue eyes.

 

“Everything okay back there?” His favourite customer and person in the world - for the moment and not counting his family and close friends, of course – asked in that smooth, deep, velvety voice of his that filled Q’s stomach with giddy butterflies before he could give his opening spiel, pointing to his hair. “It looks wilder than usual and I think you have flour in it.”

 

More than embarrassed, Q silently swore revenge on Alec, especially since he had told the man countless times what a hard time he has taming his unruly hair. “I deeply apologise if the way I currently look has affected your appetite, Mister Bond—”

 

“I insist you start calling me James already and your looks did no such thing, so cease wasting your breath on an unneeded apology,” the man interrupted, flashing him his usual carefree smile that always landed him his favourite cocktail on the house – as long as Q paid for it behind his back because nothing was for free in this restaurant unless the staff screwed up and seeing how much of a skinflint and penny pincher the owner was, everyone did their best to avoid that happening unless they knew without a doubt that they’d instantly get a better paying job somewhere else. “Now continue to charm me into ordering the chef’s special.”

 

Q was going to continue trying to charm him into ordering _him_. “Mister Bond, I don’t despise you enough to do that to you,” he whispered before opening the menu for him “I do, however, recommend everything from here onward. Should I bring your usual cocktail while you decide?” He realized his rookie mistake as soon as he had finished asking his question, so the Maître d’s glare that burned the back of his neck was unnecessary.

 

Luckily, the man knew what to say to keep him out of trouble. “You always make me feel like the most important customer in the world when you make extra sure that you have my order just right.”

 

“That is the motto we work by here at ‘Le Chiffre’,” the owner himself said as he stepped in Q’s sight, throwing him a glare before sitting across from James. “Fetch Mister Bond his drink and don’t forget to set up another place for his guest like the Maître d’ did.”

 

Q learned early in life that a day’s state wasn’t consistent and – contrary to popular belief fuelled by people’s tendency to be mostly fatalistic – if it started bad, it could end in perfection. Of course, that meant that the opposite also applied and while Q wasn’t actively searching for something specific that he could say ruined his day or made it worse, he wasn’t surprised when that something happened – though, frankly, his money would have been on either Alec doing something to embarrass him in front of Mister Bond or on Mister Bond’s date being perfections personified, not on the gates of hell opening so Scrooge McSkinflint could dine on the souls of his workers in his own restaurant.

 

“Would you like to order something to drink for your guest as well?” Q asked, straightening his back as much as he could while clasping his hands behind himself, forcing his smile to be as big and friendly as it could be – aka until his cheeks started to hurt – as that was how Mister Jean Duran expected them to present themselves to their customers.

 

“Have someone else bring Mister Bond his drink right now alongside a bottle of our best wine and make sure they understand that it’s on the  house,” the owner snapped at him, his left eye becoming a lighter shade of blue which Q learned that it meant he was a wrong breath away from firing someone. “I apologize on the behalf of my staff for any misunderstandings, but I feel that hiring people like them is the least that I can do for society.”

 

Q bowed his head to hide his eye twitch, fisting his hands only when he was back in the kitchen because it was forbidden for everyone who interacted with customers to show that they were capable of feeling anything else but pure happiness to serve them. And that made perfectly good sense until you found out that someone lost their job for _flinching_ after their hand accidentally came into contact the hot plate that they were serving.  

 

“—help me, I will really do that the next time it happens!” the Maître d’ was just finishing saying, the vein on his forehead looking like it was about to pop at how uncaring and bored Alec looked.

 

“The owner is here and he isn’t happy,” Q whispered before the man could start again, the world around him stopping for a second before everyone started to be even more frantic in their food preparing and plating.

 

That is, everyone but Alec, the man snorting as he rolled his eyes. “I don’t think that man is capable of being happy when he isn’t feasting on a soul of getting high on the smell of his money.”

 

Alec was probably right and he was most definitely out of the owner’s hearing range, but that didn’t stop two of the chef’s helpers to try and shove napkins in his mouth, resulting in the chef starting to shout about the food getting burned, the Maître d’ desperately trying to stop everything before an actual fight broke out while Q sneaked his way around everyone as he grabbed what he needed to set another place at James’ table.

 

They must have been louder than Q thought because on his way out, he almost bumped into the fuming owner who was clearly making his way into the kitchen. “I’m not paying you to doddle,” he snarled and Q was at James’ table in the blink of an eye.

 

He realized he should have asked the man where he wanted his guest to be seated only after he was done folding the main napkin into a swan, the man grabbing his hand before he could move anything. “It’s as if you can read my mind, Q, because you’ve set the table perfectly,” he said loudly, flashing him a big smile.

 

It wasn’t the first time the man had done that, but Q still let out a little noise which he tried to stop by biting his lower lip and he still couldn’t look him in the eyes, a wave of pleasant dizziness washing over him – and if that was the reaction he got out of him just when their hands touched, Q really hoped the man would touch another part of him.

 

“Thank you for always being so understanding even though you are not supposed to, Mister Bond,” Q muttered and stepped to the side, getting his little notepad out. “Have you decided on what to order, or do you want to wait until your guest joins you?”

 

“Do you mind if I ask you something before I order?” Q shrugged and bent down a little, expecting to be shown an item on the menu. “Am I overstepping a boundary or making you uncomfortable in any way when I ask you to call me by my first name?”

 

Caught off guard by the question, Q couldn’t quite find his voice to answer so he slowly shook his head.

 

James let out a sigh of relief, chuckling. “Good, because if I am, don’t let the fact that I’m a customer stop you from bringing that to my attention because you can sue if you get fired for that.”

 

Well, if he made it look like the owner was encouraging prostitution and Q was sure that if push came to shove, he’d find an army of former employees who’d back that claim up just because they hated his guts, but that was precisely the reason why the man didn’t let them get too friendly with the customers – despite having been told multiple times that his staff’s tips would increase and more people would be willing to make this restaurant their main one if they were treated with a little bit of warmth.

 

“It wouldn’t be professional for me to refer to you, our honoured guest, by anything else but your last name,” Q explained softly, nodding his head as he pretended to show him something in the menu just in case the owner was spying in on him because he was obviously not back in the kitchen with James’ order. “Now, may I take your order,” he dropped his voice to barely a whisper, “James?”

 

Q melted at the smile James gave him and if his chuckle sounded more like a giggle, he would blame a non-existent cold on it.

 

From that moment on, nothing could ruin his day. Not him having to cover another server’s section that called in sick in the last moment without extra pay – the tips is what kept him alive – not the owner deciding to stay there for the rest of the day just so he could hurl insults left and right, not a customer’s child deciding that the overpriced chocolate cake looked  better on their Egyptian Cotton table linens which he was going to be blamed for, and certainly not James’ date ended up looking like she had an easy time putting Victoria’s Secret models to shame – which also hammered in the fact that James was as straight as a ruler, but Q was used to not having a snowball’s chance in hell with the person he was interested in.

 

“Your customer is either a magician or it has been such a long time since you last had sex that all he has to do is wink at you to put you back in a very good mood.” Ah, he had forgotten that Alec still existed, the unsteady mountain of unwashed dishes and crystal glasses he had in his arms that was making everyone uncomfortable and afraid for their future in the restaurant for not jumping to take everything away from him explaining how he found the time to tease him.

 

“Why do I have to have had some form of sex to be back in a good mood?” Q asked instead, giving the rest of his orders to the main cook and starting to help him load everything Alec was caring in the dishwasher. “And don’t you dare hint at drugs or alcohol or anything else because then I really will get angry with you.”

 

It was Alec’s time to look offended. “That’s one line I would never dare to cross, Q,” he said seriously. “Teasing you about your non-existent love life is one thing, but I’d rather cut off my own tongue than suggest you’d so something that’s bad for your health and/or illegal just for kicks.”

 

Q’s eye twitched, all feelings of regret going out the window. “You currently are my second least favoured person, Alec.”

 

“But I am above the demon that’s currently stomping over to us with a look of pure hatred in his eyes, right?”

 

“Most definitely,” Q breathed out, trying to look himself look smaller. “I’m keeping an eye on all of my tables, Mister Duran.”

 

The man’s left eye was now such a light shade of blue that it was almost white. “Then would you care to tell me why Mister Bond, our current VIP guest from table seven, looks annoyed?” He grabbed a silver tray from the table near them and pushed it in his chest, snapping his fingers once and main chef instantly appeared by his side and placed two small strawberry cakes on it. “Now you wouldn’t be trying to sneak in unauthorised freebies, would you? Because I hate repeating myself and I’m very sure that I made it clear from day one that I and only I am permitted to do such things and all employees who are caught doing so will be charged with attempted robbery.”

 

If he wasn't in such a good mood and if didn’t need this job, he would have quit right then and there after ripping the bastard a new one. But, alas, practicing his true calling outside of that specific field of work – from which he was banned since he lacked any document outside of a high school diploma to back up his knowledge, not because he was under the illusion that he was good – was very expensive and since this was the only highbrow society restaurant that really didn’t care what you did in the past – as long as it wasn’t jail – and hired with an actual work contract and a beyond decent pay check on top of which you got to keep all of the tips you made overnight as a sever without splitting them with anyone, period.

 

“I’ll personally check how many of these were sold at the end of the day.” Although, did he really need this job? “Actually let me spell it out for you because you’re a good little mule and I would almost feel sad to lose you: if you don’t pay for them before I do that, your supposedly squeaky clean police record will get that one spot that’s guaranteed to ruin the rest of your life.”

 

No, no he didn’t. This job was overrated, the pay wasn’t high enough for him to put up with this verbal abuse, most of the rich customers were scrooges, and he was still waiting for that promised bonus for the improved customer paying system he had specifically created for the restaurant – that he couldn’t patent since he had used five systems that already existed – which only proved that he was sure to make it as a hacker.

 

“He wouldn’t have it any other way since he knows the restaurant policy,” Alec quickly jumped in as if he sensed the stupid thing that Q was to do, gently starting to push him out the door. “He looks like he’s about to be dumped, so go see if he’ll be okay with eating that cake off of you.”

 

“I wish you’d lose your voice already, Alec,” Q hissed, biting his lower lip to keep himself from kicking the door in hopes of knocking some sense and proper social skills in the mouthy bus-child – though the glare the owner sent him through the little window helped a lot more and he practically ran to table seven.

 

James needed a moment to notice him, but when he did his sour look gave way to one of light amusement while his date started to dig through her purse. “I am starting to suspect that you guys have flour fights behind the doors,” he said as he took the tray away from Q and put it on the table. “Let’s get some of it out of you before the owner sees you and before you prove what a valued employee you are by sticking up for him, I already know that he can be a little intense.”

 

“And by ‘intense’, he means a psycho who has no right to be walking around freely in society and cause others harm,” the woman muttered grimly, actually looking terrified as she emptied her crystal wine glass in one go. “That being said, my husband will bring you the full portfolio no earlier than next Monday so you can sign it. Good day.”

 

She brushed really close against Q’s side as she scampered off towards the exit, but as soon as she was out the door, James’ eyes connected with his and he was much too busy going through a cliché and getting lost in said eyes and trying not to melt in the man’s arms while also mentally thanking Alec for somehow getting flour on his face without him noticing to care about anything else.

  

“I think I got all of it off,” James murmured as he took a step back and carefully turned Q’s head to the side, brushing his thumb against the corner of his lips and sending goose bumps down his spine. “But just to be sure, how about we meet up after you get off?”

 

If he was made to pay for everything everyone ordered today and then fired right then and there, he’d still consider this to be the greatest day in his life, even if it sounded rather pathetic.


	2. Chapter 2

James’ definition of ‘mundane’ greatly differed from the rest of the world. If others complained that they chickened out of buying something different for lunch, he groaned in frustration every time the world started to spin too fast because someone had slipped something  funny in either his drink or his food or both. In his version of women/men problems, weapons were always involved and he despite the fact that he understood it wasn’t something normal, he was still somewhat baffled every now and then when he observed a civilian couple breaking up in a civilised manner.

 

But even though he had many close calls in the past and he had a very hard time trusting those he hadn’t met before starting to work for MI6, he almost never regretted the choices he made that led him to become a spy. Almost because, every now and then, he crossed paths with a civilian that he could easily picture himself fighting over the covers with and in this case, it was the willowy waiter with the wild brown hair and pretty green eyes hidden behind askew hipster glasses with thick lenses down at ‘Le Chiffre’ that somehow always ended up serving him and throwing in freebies each and every time.

 

A pity that his taste when it came to people in general was horrible and the man’s friendliness and shy might turn out to be nothing more than a really good act of a mole – because that was the only explanation that he and his higher-ups could come up for why their enemies always knew what had been plotted or exchanged in what was supposed to be a neutral zone.

 

Now the next logical step was for everyone to simply stop having work-related meetings in ‘Le Chiffre, but spy agencies weren’t known for their logic as much as for their overly-complicated plans and thus it was decided that everyone continued to act as if nothing was wrong until something happened.

 

Naturally, James had decided half-way through M’s angry ranting that the plan was boring so he had stopped listening to it, figuring that if he was anything more than a peon in everything, Major Boothroyd would make him write his important part down about a hundred times before letting him so much as glance in the direction of the equipment that he was bound to destroy.

 

As his hand hadn’t cramped yet from useless cursive writing and since the Major just laughed in his face whenever he was asked about new equipment, James went ahead with his own plan and since the young man was doing everything in the book except outright throwing his naked body covered in whipped cream on the table, he proceeded acting as if this was nothing more and nothing less than a simple honeypot mission.

 

And, for the first time in forever, he didn’t have to act like he was interested – which was going to come back to haunt him when everything was over, but it was best if he didn’t think about that now.

 

His smilers were bigger, kinder, and friendlier which made the other turn red faster than usual. He made sure that their fingers accidentally brushed when the younger man handed him anything and he always offered to help him dust off his uniform. He even started living an even ridiculous sum of money for a tip until he found out that Q only got to keep that if he was sat in his zone – which almost never happened, so James reverted back to the minimum because he couldn’t be a complete ass and not leave behind anything.

 

For his part, Q did not alter his way of flirting a single bit, although he seemed to blush more furiously every time he was under James’ gaze. He still took a moment to try and arrange himself in the kitchen before coming out, obviously forgetting that their customers could also see inside through the small windows and every time someone entered or exited the kitchen, still treated him to his favourite drink which he personally made, but never slipped him his phone number with the bill, which baffled James until someone pointed out that the other assumed that he was as straight as a Casanova could come due to the fact that he always had a beautiful woman by his side.

 

He obviously couldn’t show up on his own in the restaurant and flirt like that since M would realize right away what he was doing, but he could alter his current mission enough to complete it without anything going bad while also landing Q in his bed and then his second plan could begin – namely screwing all the secrets out of the man’s head.

  

He was practically served the right time to ask Q out on a silver platter when he walked out of the kitchen covered in flour which just begged to be gently dusted off and clearly wound up so tight that it because his duty to shag him into bliss and he wasn’t dumb enough to waste it, especially since he hit a snag with his main mission – that went by the name of Jean Duran – which made his man mission contact be really uncomfortable and paranoid.

 

When said contact split, James sprung his trap. “I think I got all of it off,” he started, barely holding back a grin at the disappointed small noise that Q made in the back of his throat when he pulled back, assuming that the only reason why the grown man wasn’t outright pouting was because he was brushing the corner of his lips with his thumb. “But just to be sure, how about we meet up after you get off?”

 

Q jumped so fast away from him that for a moment, he thought he had screwed up. But then he saw how red his face was and the way he wiggled his fingers right before clapping them behind his back in an attempt to hide his nervousness, and he knew that he was a gentle nudge away from winning.

 

“I’m not sure that I can accept,” he said slowly, all the excitement in his eyes draining instantly. “It’s against the rules for employees to go out with—”

 

“I’m not asking you as a customer,” James interrupted him after throwing a hundred quid on the table.

 |

Q rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, you are twenty-five pound short, so you are and I also got you these pieces of strawberry cake. But that’s not why you’re short because they are on the house and the second piece was for your companion,” Q quickly added, making himself even more adorable to James for how hard he was stammering.

 

This man had stumbled on a goldmine with the way he was acting and since James’ own trust in his hunch was affected a little by this innocent act, he feared a little for the younger generation of double ohs.

 

“I can take them back if you don’t want them and I apologize for assuming that you and she were... I mean, that you and her wanted dessert so now that I think about it, I can cover the full check as an apology,” Q was still going on, his face getting redder with each new word that passed his lips and James decided that he feared a lot for any generation of spies if this is what they had to go against now.

 

“I’ll pay in full since the way I act with my business partners is very unorthodox and take the cakes to go,” James stepped in before he could be even more ensnared by the dangerous weapon. “Maybe we can eat them together later tonight or early tomorrow morning?”

 

Q froze for a second before a huge, warm smile spread on his lips and he finally relaxed. “I like that idea quite a lot, Mister Bond.” His smile became strained as he glanced back at the kitchen, tensed once more. “But, I’m still—actually, you know what? My lunch break started two minutes ago which means that I’m technically no longer a waiter right now, so I gladly accept your offer.”

 

“At what hour should I pick you up from here, or from your apartment?” James offered without missing a beat, already pulling his phone out to type in where the man lived.

 

“We’ll meet at the British Museum at…” Q trailed off, narrowing his eyes, no doubt calculating how long it would take him to go home, change, and then get there. “How does eight in the afternoon sound?”

 

“Perfect.”

 

James made sure to ask to speak with Mr. Duran before he left and explain how lucky he was to have Q as an employee, although he needed a good minute before he could find a logical answer that didn’t involve him thinking with his other head, but he was quite proud of himself when he did: the mole needed to remain somewhere they could keep an eye on and find out who he was working for in the off chance that he somehow screwed up the honeypot mission.

 

However, although he had no doubt that him bedding Q was a sure thing, he still made sure to make their night seem special. He got his best suit, had his best car washed inside and out, hired someone to tidy his apartment and make it seemed like it was lived in, and pulled a few strings to get a last minute reservation at another fancy restaurant since it only made sense that someone who played the role of a waiter for so long would want someone else to fret and gush over them as if they were a king.

 

He was surprised when Q showed up fifteen minutes late for their date, looking dishevelled, his clearly cheap suit hidden under a thin parka, and looking more than scared and James strongly suspected that it wasn’t because he was trying to play the role of a virgin. “I’m not one to be this embarrassingly late, but I lost the first tube and once that happens, you really have to make a run for it if you want to catch all the other ones,” Q started to explain without being prompted, falling a step behind James to try to get his hair under control and straighten out his jacket. “I hope I didn’t ruin what you had planned for us night?”

 

With quite a large amount of horror, James realized that because of the look Q was giving him, he was willing to find a way for their date to continue unaffected even if he had been left waiting in front of that museum for three days straight even without getting a phone call to warn him of the delay.

 

“No need to worry about that,” James assured him, putting his arm around Q’s middle. “And trust me I know how hard it can be to get on the tube in time.”

 

Q found that hard to believe seeing that the other was hold an Aston Martin DB5’s door open for him, but James took that moment to remember one of the worst missions in his entire spy career and how much he had wanted to shoot every bloody git that got between him and the maniac planning on killing every member of the royal family. It was because of that same mission that landed him in hot water with both M and K two months later when he refused to take the tube again and just gave chase on a police motorcycle he had _borrowed_.

 

“Is everything okay?” Q asked as he pulled the hood over his head and trying to make himself smaller in the seat, flinching every time someone passed by the car. “We can take a taxi is the car isn’t starting.”

 

“I was trying to remember a shortcut,” James easily lied as he started up the car, noting the sigh of relief that Q let out when they started to move. “I can drop you off home and we can reschedule everything if you’re feeling a bit off.”

 

“No,” Q all but shouted, ducking his head in an apologetic manner for his outburst. “I’m fine, honestly. It’s just that I’m a little…” He trailed off and waved his hands around, worrying his lower lip.

 

“A little annoyed at a mosquito in my car that I promise to obliterate without flipping us over the second I see it?” James tried to joke, ignoring the yellow light and cutting two lanes because the first rule of getting a mole on your side is to make them feel comfortable in your presence and hint at the fact that if they turn on their master, you’ll protect them. “But seriously, Q, don’t think that this is our only chance; I’ll give you my number – which you can call right away in case I look like someone who would give you a fake phone number – and you just give me a call whenever.”

 

There was a long stretch of silence between them and James slowed down as he pulled close to the curb and turned on the hazard lights because Q looked like he was about to take the way out. But then he shook his head and shot James a shy smile. “It’s the first time I do this with a complete stranger, so it is only natural if I am a bit nervous. Plus, reading what I read before leaving didn’t help at all with my nerves like I thought it would. In fact, it made everything worse,” he grumbled, brushing his hand against the right upper pocket of his parka.

 

James hummed, intentionally catching a red light so he could Google something – a clear sign that the world was beginning to end. “We can go at the cinema to catch a comedy, if you think that would help.”

 

Q arched his right eyebrow at him and James finally caught a glimpse of that sassiness he only saw when he wasn’t on the floor, and it was only then that he realized what a stupid suggestion the movie was. If Q was jumpy with him out in public and on a well-lit street where cops casually strolled around while glaring at everyone, the last place he’d want to be with him would be a dark place in which there was a high possibility of being just the two of them, depending on the horribleness and cheapness of the movie’s script.

 

“Let’s hold on to that idea for when we’re going to go out again,” Q said carefully, awkwardly patting James’ back. “ _If_ we do that,” he added and then turned his head to look out the window, pretty much putting an end to that conversation and – maybe – accidentally presenting James with a challenge.

 

James had already made a great effort to ensure that tonight would be perfect and that he’d get a second chance in case Q wouldn’t start singing like a canary – something he would had done even if this wasn’t a mission – but hearing the other’s doubt that there would be a repeat of everything convinced him that he needed to do more than his best and woo Q as if his life depended on it.

 

With that set of mind, James started a new conversation, one in which he praised Q for the way he looked and that wasn’t very hard to do because he did have to admit that this was the first time he saw a cheap suit look _good_. Of course that earned him a compliment back which he used to segue into talking about how buying expensive things was one of his hobbies.

 

That turned out to be a horrible idea because looked offended as he muttered a simple ‘I see’ and James mentally kicked himself because of course Q would act like someone who wouldn’t be interested in that since his boss surely knew that he always dealt with people like that.

 

His second attempt at a conversation started after twenty minutes of awkward silence, but they reached their destination before James could further make a fool of himself by finding a new way of saying that the London weather was dreary. That subject was only something that a rookie would attempt and James wanted to smash his head against the wheel of his car as he watched Q pretty much making a run for the restaurant door, but he was sure that if he set the airbags off, everything would be over and then he’d get the gut turning news that the young man’s body washed up on the banks of the River Thames.

 

And the poor man looked already so out of place in front of the lavish restaurant, still oblivious to the looks of shock and disgust that some of the patrons were throwing him for daring to insult their eyes with his cheap clothing, so he quickly shook off the feeling of a rookie agent that was close to failing one of M’s surprise tests and threw the valet his car keys, wrapping his arm around Q’s middle. “Let’s see if I can make it through dinner without making an ass of myself.”

 

Q blinked slowly at him and then started to chuckle, visibly relaxing as they entered the restaurant. “You should be safe as long as you don’t start fanning yourself with money and decide that your skin is allergic to anything but 50 pound notes when it comes to wiping your mouth.”

 

James clicked his tongue, shooing the waiter away so he would be the one to pull the chair out for Q. “Now that is going to be a challenge and you must promise not to run away screaming in disgust when I break out in hives from using these silk napkins. Also, know that I am Scottish and that I always carry around with me a hundred pounds banknotes.”

 

“Excuse this poor peasant from missing that obvious fact and insulting your wallet in such a manner,” Q joked back, taking something out of his parka before giving it to the waiter and accepting the menu. “I hope the owner isn’t as strict as Mr. Duran or else he’ll need a new job for not first offering to take my coat,” he said seriously after the man had moved out of their hearing range.

 

“He’s surely not that bad,” James said, frowning.

 

Q snorted, flipping through the menu. “He once fired a cook for daring to leave the soup for one extra minute than what the recipe recommended, despite being aware of the fact that we were having issues with the gas that day. Then there was the server who dared to come out of the kitchen with his bowtie untied, the one who tried to make things easier by wearing a clip-on bowtie, the one whose white shirt got ruined by a couple that had broken up and were locked in an intense wine throwing at each other—”

 

“But that wasn’t in his power to control,” James interrupted him, genuinely getting annoyed at hearing the owner’s antics.

 

It was clear to anyone from a mile away that he was the kind who had a strict set of rules and quite a few of the guests he had brought there due to an ongoing mission made off handed comments about how the man struck them as unusually cruel, but James never imagined him to be this mentally unstable.

 

Q smacked his lips. “Ah, but you see… It’s stated in the contract we signed that all servers must have at least two white shirts with them and that, in case the first shirt was already ruined, they should either be extra careful with their second one or change into a third one before any guests see the stains on their back up shirt. But listen to me boring you with my work instead of finally being openly curious about yours.”

 

He was almost tempted to tell him that he was a spy just so he’d feel better, but he bit his tongue just in time to avoid falling in Q’s trap. “I deal with import-export,” he said simply.

 

But while other people in the past were satisfied with that answer, Q wasn’t. “What are you importing and exporting?”

 

The question was so unexpected that James actually choked on the water. “Excuse me, but what?”

 

“What are you exporting and importing?” Q asked again, leaning closer to him. “I’ve always wondered how a company decides what to import and what to export and if you can do both things with a single type of item.”

 

James knew that he had maybe one second to come up with a good answer and all he could think about was just how flawed the whole excuse was and how lucky they’ve been all this time. “Cars,” he blurted out. “Nissans, BMWs, and Volkswagens for us tea drinkers and Aston Martins for the world, so nothing interesting for me to tell you. That is, nothing that happened to me while I was within our borders,” he added when he saw a bit of disappointment flash in Q’s eyes.

 

Without really meaning to, he found himself sharing a story with Q, forcing him to alter his plan a little. He left a few threads hanging that a civilian wouldn’t really care about, surprised that Q was honestly more interested in how he got out of everything unscathed and still with a job. By his third story, he was pretty much begging Q to ask him more while also keeping him relaxed and distracted from everything by playing footsie with him under the table and feeding him strawberries dipped in chocolate.

 

But try as he might, Q continued to ignore the traps that weren’t so obvious. “If you still have your job after you accidentally had a hand in melting an ice palace in Iceland, then you must be a really good…” Q trailed off again, frowning, and James froze. “What are you exactly in this company?”

 

A perfect little spy that knew the perfect questions to ask – M would also love him since after tonight James would go out of his way to fully read his undercover story, no matter how bored he got after the first sentence. “Their best damned salesman that has the title of a Lord attached to him.”

 

“The title of Lord of destruction, no doubt,” Q challenged him, grabbing his hand before he could pull it away from his mouth. “I’ve heard chocolate stains, Mister Bond.” He grinned and licked his lips as he said that, his intentions clear.

 

And really, if Q wanted to get there faster than originally planned, who was James to try and stop him? “I’d hate for anything to happen to my favourite suit.” He muttered and brushed Q’s lips with the tips of his fingers, shivering when the he felt the other’s tongue barely touched him.

 

“Then we must get you out of it before you do any damage to it, mustn’t we?”

 

James didn’t even look at how much money he had dumped on the table and as soon as Q was returned his precious parka, he grabbed James’ hand and pretty much dragged him out of the restaurant. He was convinced to drive faster than usual by Q casually resting his hand on his tight and at the same time tempted to catch every stoplight since Q was inclined to start nibbling on his neck while his hand wandered away from his tight.

 

“You’re going to make it so that we’ll get fined for indecent exposure if you keep this up,” James warned as he tilted his head to make more room for Q. “Although I’d be more bothered by them interrupting us than anything else and I can’t guarantee that my boss would be too happy about having to send someone to get me out of jail if that happens.”

 

“I want to make it in one piece to your apartment, so do control yourself and don’t be wild where you’re not supposed to,” Q whispered in his ear before biting down hard on its lobe. “Now best you start driving before the people behind us ram us since the light’s been green for two seconds already.”

 

They made it to James’ apartment after what seemed like ages passed even if in reality, it was a new record, and the doorman’s greetings were ignored by the two in favour of throwing themselves in the elevator where their lips finally locked together and James’s eyes rolled in the back of his head as the other’s sweet taste invaded his mouth.

 

Q tasted as sweet as James thought he would and he just loved the hint of spice hidden that seemed to perfectly match his personality. He pushed him up against the side of the elevator, trying to lose himself even more in the man’s warmth and smell that reminded him of a forest after a light rain, but as soon as he helped Q wrap his legs around his middle, the elevator dinged and the doors opened, causing them to come out tumbling.

 

“This is not the reason I thought my arse would hurt in the morning,” Q groaned as James rolled off of him, needing a moment before he accepted the offered hand. “Your hallway is more homey than I thought.”

 

“We are technically in my apartment,” James explained, missing Q’s mouth by an inch because the man suddenly turned his head to the side to be amazed by everything. “I’ll give you a tour in the morning, when we wait for the coffee to be done,” he promised, cupping Q’s chin and gently turning his head back towards him. “Of course, if you have it in you, we could take another sort of tour.”

 

Q wrapped his arms around James’ neck and legs around his middle once more and offered James a changeling grin. “Don’t make any promises that you can’t keep, Mister Bond.”

 

“Don’t revert to calling me that, Q; ‘James’ is so much easier to moan and yell,” He bit down on his neck after which he gently started to suck on it, slipping a hand down the back of Q’s trousers, suddenly no longer regretting that they weren’t hugging his backside like the ones from his uniform did.

 

“Prove it,” Q growled, biting down hard on the other’s lips. “Make me _scream_ it.”

 

It would have been so easy for James to remove Q’s trousers with a single move, but that would be giving the man exactly what he wanted way too soon and he sensed that would bore him. So he pulled on the break and returned to nibbling on Q’s neck, drawing small circles on his cheeks

 

Of course this grandmaster plan of his only lasted for thirty seconds because Q hopped off of him and slid his hand down his pants which got James to throw him over his shoulder and then in his bed. “You’ve teased me enough as my waiter, Q.”

 

He surprised himself by going for Q’s lips instead of anything else, but their slow kiss quickly reverted back into rubbing, growling, and biting and just as Q was about to rid James of his pants and show him just how handy he could be, a knock at the door interrupted them.

 

It was rare for James to forget himself, but Q was just too addicting and he was sure that whoever was selling whatever would eventually get the message and leave, his senses returning to him only when it became clear that the insistent knocking couldn’t be ignored anymore and James had no choice but to tear himself from the panting Q, giving those puffy lips a quick peck. “I’ll be right back.”

 

“I’ll start on my own again and actually continue if you’re not back in here in five,” Q warned, resting his head in the palm of his hand and drumming his fingers just above his hip bone. “And don’t think me above finishing alone if you take too long.”

 

Never one for turning down a good show, James actually sat at the foot of the bed, forgetting why he wasn’t ravishing the younger man until the knocking started again and this time, it was clear that whoever was behind the door was using their fists and legs. “They clearly won’t stop until they’re shoved back in the elevator but I will make your wait worth, I promise.”

 

Q narrowed his eyes and hooked his thumb in his pants which sent James running to the front door, pulling it open so hard that it almost flew off its hinges. “What?” He barked, instinctively reaching for his gun when he saw how Alec looked.

 

“Your Miss Carver is in a coma and of course that bloody arse is nowhere in sight,” the man said erratically, pushing past him and making a beeline for the bar. “She didn’t have the USB on her, but of course she wouldn’t because that little—”

 

“He’s been with me from 8.15 onwards,” James interrupted Alec, covering his mouth as he glanced towards the bedroom. “Still is, if you get my point,” he added in an even more subdued whisper than before. “Before you make your exit and I go do some damage control, would he have had the time to do that and get to the British Museum at 8.15?”

 

Alec took a second to think and then shrugged, proving that he could never be useful until the end when it came to imparting information – but he was good at having one’s back in the field, were it counted, and he was a good wingman and a heck of a loyal friend that would go up against Satan himself if needed, so James thought the world of him.

 

“I’ll have him until morning at least,” he started to say as he pushed Alec out the door and guided him to the elevator, his firm hand on the man’s shoulder keeping him from acting out on his anger. “Alec, I—”

 

“I fell for his innocent act, James,” Alec growled, his whole body shaking with the need to inflict pain. “I started to doubt that he was anything more than an awkward inventor who served food because it never crossed his mind how much he could make if he simply invested in a decent camera.”

 

There was something in James that didn’t allow him to believe that Q could do anything like that. “If what you say is true, we’ll applaud him while M sticks him in a deep hole in the ground and then we’ll learn from our mistakes.” He shoved Alec in the elevator and turned a key in the hidden panel by the door, effectively blocking all access to the penthouse. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

 

James waited until the elevator’s doors fully closed before made his way back in the actual apartment, hushing all the instincts that were urging him to enter into full agent mode and get all the answers he wanted by force. Once the red dots disappeared from his vision and he was sure that he could grab something without breaking it, he took the bottle of alcohol that Alec had opened, hiding his sigh of relief with a fake smile at the sight of Q still in the bedroom, now sitting on his back with his legs crossed above him, nose buried in his phone.

 

“Did you end up needing a little bit of help starting without me?” He asked, pleased on a certain level to see the other flinch.

 

Q took a moment to school his features into disappointment, James mentally cursing his libido for reacting to the pouty lips. “I thought you had forgotten about me, so I was messing with your Wi-Fi as punishment.”

 

“I had to have a serious conversation with the doorman about who he lets up here,” James lied, sliding on the bed next to Q, placing little kisses on his cheek. “You’re much more elastic than I thought you were.”

 

Grinning and rolling away from James, Q pulled up both of their ties. “Speaking of surprises, how would you feel if I were to make sure you don’t abandon me the next time you hear knocking?”

 

Like he might as well offer to draw a bullseye on his chest if he agreed. Then again, Q had no gun from what he could see and if he turned him down, there was a high possibility that their date would end right then and there, so the choice was obvious – plus, truth be told, he really wanted to. “You’ll have to do most of the work this first round, you know.” He said as he stretched, humming when Q straddled him.

 

“You’ll make up for that, of course,” Q promised him, distracting him as he tied his first arm with slow and deep kisses only to turn serious and completely ignore James’ puckered lips as he hurried to finish tying his second hand, proof that he shouldn’t have been given the benefit of a doubt in the first place.

 

“Q, you don’t have to—”

 

“Yes, I do if I want to make it out of here alive,” Q interrupted him as he jumped off of James and tried to get his pants back on.

 

“I can protect you,” James tried again, realizing mid-tug that Q had switched his cheap tie for another one of his.

 

Q snorted, not bothering to button up his shirt in favour of destroying James’ phone. “Protect what’s left of me after you and that nut job friend of yours are done with me, right? I don’t think so, Mister Bond.” He opened the window and threw out the remains of the phone, making sure to walk in a wide arc around the bed so the agent wouldn’t be kicked. “The one time I agree to do this, and I end up almost being a victim to two serial killers or human traffickers.”

 

Shocked by the accusation, it took the sound of the bedroom door slamming shut and the key turning in its lock to get James’ brain to form coherent thoughts again. “Q? Q, get back here and untie me! Q! Q, I swear that the only safe place for you right now is here with me! I’m a spy and you’re in danger!”


	3. Chapter 3

Q liked to think that for once in his life he had actually managed to blackmail someone without technology to back him up. He told himself that he got the owner to let him leave work earlier with the simple threat of walking out right then and there with every single technological thing he had implemented for free despite quickly changing his tune to agreeing to upgrade everything on his time off with no extra money as well as to come in at ten tomorrow even though he started at two in the afternoon. 

 

That still didn’t stop him from humming as he was leaving, attracting the jealousy of his colleagues as well as the attention of the always nosy and teasing Alec  -really, his good mood and happiness acted like a flame and the man turned into a giant moth that never got the hint no matter how many times you swatted it away. “You’re either dying or suffering from some horrible disease that’s contagious if that horrid creature let you go,” Alec said in an overly-dramatic manner, clutching his chest. "Alas, poor Q! I hardly got to know you!"

 

Knowing that a very tight hug would follow, Q dodged in the nick of time and held his backpack in front of himself like a shield. “I pretty much traded my soul to leave now, Alec, so please don’t do anything that would keep me here for longer than necessary.”

 

He carefully turned towards the backdoor, but as soon as his hand brushed against its handle, Alec threw himself against it. “Seriously, are you sick? Is it a family emergency? Do you need a ride home? A ride to a hospital? A ride to a police section? Am I being too curious? I can drive you wherever without asking you anything, if you want.”

 

It was amazing and amusing to watch the man talk so much and so fast without breathing and without turning blue in the face, if inconvenient when you were trying to ditch him. “Nothing as fatalistic as that, Alec, but it’s still something personal which means that it’s none of your business.”

 

Though clearly displeased by the answer and burning with curiosity, Alec was decent enough to move away from the door and let Q pass. But Q was allowed only a brief respite in the shabby alley that smelled and looked like it belonged in the ghetto rather than the fancy part of London before he bumped into another problem – or rather, before said problem tackled him to the ground and dragged him behind the dumpsters.

 

“So terribly sorry about this,” a woman whispered in his ear, her voice familiar enough for Q to instantly recognize her as the woman that had been enjoying lunch earlier with James, “but I needed to have a quick conversation with you without anyone knowing. Now, I’m going to remove my hand from your mouth and you’re not going to scream or attack me because you’re a right gentleman, okay?”

 

As much as he would have liked to pretend that the only reason he had been taken down so easily was because it was a surprise attack, the cruel reality was that he was so daft at self-defense that a ten year old child could have taken him down with nothing but a stick as a weapon.

 

“Mister waiter, did you understand what I said or did I accidentally knock you on the noggin?” The woman asked and Q quickly nodded. “Oh, I didn’t mean to do that, honestly. I think I can sneak some ice out—”

 

“I was nodding to your original question,” Q said in a muffled voice, waiting for the woman to take her hands away from his mouth before he continued. “Please don’t tell me we’re having a conversation like this because you want to warn me about what might happen if I go out with Mister Bond because I’m sure I heard you talk about a husband.”

 

She snorted, easily pulling Q back up on his feet – and the lack of so much as a grunt on her behalf was a sign from God Himself that Q really needed to start going to a gym to gain some muscle mass or he'd really have to start walking around with a brick in his backpack on windy days. “I had no idea that you were doing that. Is it tonight?” Q carefully nodded, narrowing his eyes which prompted the woman to pluck his glasses from his face and start wiping them against her blouse. “That’s good, that’s very good. Make sure you sleep with him before everything goes to hell and trust me, because Bond’s involved, that will happen the second you reach heaven.”

 

Officially creeped out, Q was pretty sure he could make it to the main street even if his vision was extremely blurry. “Well, thank you for the tip, but I really need to leave now if I'm going to make it in time.”

 

He made to walk, but she dug her nails in his arms to keep him in place. “Joking aside, Mister waiter, no matter what happens, don’t leave Bond’s side,” she whispered cryptically before a noise sent her running out of the back alley and Q simply sitting frozen in the stink circle for a few minutes, trying to determine if what had just happened was real or if the lack of sleep combined with his stressful way of living made him hallucinate.

 

In the end, the pungent smell helped him decide that this wasn't the right place to wonder such things and he quickly made his way back to the main street before he was reminded in a very disgusting manner what he had for lunch, realizing only when he actually got a seat on the tube with no one trying to ‘accidentally’ maul him with their bags or offhanded comments about how ‘the youth these days had no respect for their hard-working elders’ – in the middle of London’s third daily rush hour no less – that the stink had clung to him.

 

On one hand, he was outright ecstatic about that since after a long day of serving on others and not exactly being allowed to sit down even though all his tables were all taken care of, having a chair all to himself and being allowed to breathe was a God sent and on the other hand, stinking to the high heavens while pretty much going on a booty-call was a big no-no, so he tried to will the tube to move faster and even skip some stations, sullenly sending everyone that got off or got in to hell and back because damn them, he really didn't want this night to be ruined.

 

But he told himself to calm down and not act this desperate. He still had a lot of time until he had to meet with James and he could easily soak in the bathtub until he was a lavender-smelling prune and then he put his hands in his work trousers and found a USB stick that he had never seen before and he just _had_ to see what it had on it - because that couldn't take more than a few minutes, right? Just fiddle with it until it decided that it was in the right position to be plugged in then double click to find its secrets and then jump into the tub. 

 

Wrong, of course, because the day as undecided if it was going to be good to Q or a complete bitch, and the USB stick was encrypted - Q's curiosity was going to be the death of him, of that he was sure, but he still couldn't move pass his temptation. 

 

His crappy internal clock started working just as he was about to crack through the defense and he started to run around his apartment like a headless chicken, trying to get ready and get out the door in time. And he would have made it, had it not been for his laptop starting to emit that high pitch noise it did whenever someone had actually managed to virtually track him down.

 

Shocked – but also instantly aware of what had caused this since he hadn’t poked his nose where he wasn’t supposed to in over a week – Q dashed out of the shower before he could rinse himself and started to unplug every network cable, router, and switch his hands fell on, cursing left and right while also trying to start his backup security protocol meant to lead whoever he had on his tail on a virtual goose chase.

 

But his gut instinct – which some called ‘paranoia’ – told him that wasn’t the case and, fuelled by the strange encounter earlier, made Q very jumpy. He felt like someone was trailing him on the tube, so he got off at the wrong station at the very last second, took a new one in the opposite direction he was going, took a cab for three blocks, took a bus for two more, and then he was back on the tube which made him be late for his date with James.

 

The man’s sight made him forget about everything for a few minutes then he thought that he saw someone who had been on one of the tubes with him and he was back to being paranoid once again, something that wasn’t missed by James and the man, the beautiful man, rushed to offer him safety instead of ending the date right then and there.

 

Dinner went by a lot faster and by the time they finished drinking the bottle of very expensive wine, Q had forgotten about his woes and could only focus on how warm the man’s calloused hands were, how his eyes sparkled when he leaned close to him to either wipe something that definitely was on his face or arrange that one curl of his that always insisted to fall right back where it didn’t belong, and how smooth and pleasant his deep voice was even when he was sprouting horrible lines.

 

He was very pleased when they started making out in the elevator and did not even care that there was a working camera in there or that the first part of the man’s apartment looked too much like what you’d see in a real-estate magazine because he was that good with his tongue and hands and whatever little worries he had were put to rest when it was proven that his bedroom wasn’t a sex dungeon.

 

And then someone knocked and Q’s fine hearing combined with Alec’s inability to keep his voice low proved that he had a very good reason to be paranoid because why was someone he worked with buddy-buddy with the stranger that he planned on sleeping with and why were both men talking about him like he was nothing more than the stupid fish that finally took the lure and he was slowly getting pulled in?

 

Well, mostly because he clearly was and while he didn’t know what he had done to make them spring a trap that had obviously been in the making since at least when Alec started working at the restaurant, Q knew how to wiggle out of what seemed to be impossible situations.

 

And so, he used James’ need to sleep with him – not necessarily because he was interested in him as a human being or as an interesting bed partner, but because he was a sleazy, disgusting creature – to get him to lower his defences so he could run away.

 

It worked like a glove and he had to give it to the bastard that he was a great actor because he was really selling the fact that he was innocent. But Q thought himself smarter than that and to prove it, he risked his life and went down the fire escape, calling the cops and trying to convince them that he wasn’t insane.

 

“ _Alright, sir, we’ll send a patrol car to the building to pick you up,_ ” the dispatcher finally said before ending the call and no sooner had Q put his phone in his pocket that a cop car pulled up right beside him.

 

Strangely fast, but surely not unheard of, he assured himself as the window slowly pulled down.

 

“Were you the one who called in about a possible attempted kidnap?” The tall officer with the too short jacket asked and as soon as he nodded, his female partner that looked too appetising in her uniform for his comfort jumped out of the car and opened one of the backdoors for Q. “Get in; we need to give a statement down at the station before we can do anything.”

 

Q silently did as he was asked, although an impending sense of doom settled in his heart as soon as the door slammed shut behind him. The car smelled too nice, the bench was too clean and too comfortable, the radio too silent, the cops too focused on him to be real and when they picked up speed and the two exchanged quiet whispers in German, Q began to mentally kick himself and try to look calm, cool, and collected as he texted for help.

 

But a sharp turn knocked the phone out of his hand and he was too busy covering close to the front seats while bullets were being exchanged via actual guns and somewhere between sudden rights, lefts, and almost hits and runs, the car that was chasing them violently hit them and Alec somehow ended in their windshield, knocking the gun out of the woman’s hand.

 

“We’ll be with you in a second, Q,” he promised while dodging bullets and then punched the already weakened laminated safety glass to break through it and knocked the driver out, forcing the woman to give up on trying to kill him in favour of grabbing the wheel so that they wouldn’t crash.

 

Of course, there was that split second in which Alec and her stared at each other and the car started to pull to the right while Q started to see his life flash in front of his eyes. He surprisingly only regretted not using some of the money to finish his studies and _not_ die as nothing more than a simple waiter who was so horrible at reading people that his one attempt at a simple night-stand ended up with him in a body bag.

 

Thankfully, the woman’s sense of self-preservation was bigger than… whatever she was trying to do, and she actually managed to stop the car a few inches away from a wall, both her and Alec frozen in time while Q used that time to spring out of the car and attempt to zig zag his way between buildings until he reached somewhere safe.

 

Key word there being ‘attempt’. Only because his legs felt like jelly and they appeared to be in one of the few empty areas that London had so he really had no idea where he could go without either one of the two psychos easily spotting him after they were done with each other

 

“Q? Q, you okay?” Alec called out with obvious fear in his voice, letting out a growled curse as the woman charged him and started to kick him in the liver over and over again. “I drink too much to feel that,” he said and then ran backwards into the car, throwing himself over her and starting to strangle her while fixing Q with his eyes. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

 

What Q heard was an urge to simply run and that was exactly what he did – he fixated on a point and just ran. He did eventually finished crossing the entire park that he had ran into and, although he saw a police car cruising around, he decided that it was driving way too slow for an area in which an accident had happened as a result of obvious gun exchange incident so he ducked behind a garbage can until they disappeared from his sight.

 

Now his next obvious target was a police station, but the downside of being technology dependent is that, without said technology at the tips of your fingers, you were completely lost in the part of the big city you were born in and finding a payphone was nay impossible – he wasn’t quite sure that he could dial 999 without paying first and he couldn’t Google because he no longer had a phone, but he didn’t mind trying it as long as he was in a well-lit area.

 

But he’d reached his workplace before he actually found one of those ancient machines that still had its receiver attached and, given that he knew without a doubt that the phones in there worked just fine even after hours, it only made sense for him to go in.

 

“What are you doing here?” The owner asked and scared Q so hard that he actually jumped back and tripped over a table. “Careful there—”

 

“I know, don't worry… Whatever I break, I pay triple for it,” Q muttered, jumping back on his feet and dusting himself off, aware that he was bleeding in a few visible places. “I’m here to simply make a call.”

 

The strangeness of that night continued when the man thought by all to be nothing more than a snake in human disguise pushed Q down in a chair and signalled someone to bring him a glass of something while trying to peel off his jacket. “Take a moment to breathe and relax and to tell me what happened,” his boss said, still tugging on his jacket.

 

“This and that,” Q said slowly, holding on tighter to the jacket. “I might be going into shock, so I think I’ll keep this on.”

 

“A blanket is better,” the man insisted and Q knew not to touch the glass of wine that was placed in front of him. “Bring him a blanket,” his boss growled to the server that Q had never seen before and who seemed to be really interested in staring at him intently. “Now,” Mister Duran added, pulling his hand back like he was getting ready to smack him.

 

There were so many alarm bells going off in Q’s head that he was temporarily deaf. “I think I’ll make that call now.”

 

“Or better yet, you give me that jacket right now and I won’t have to hurt you,” Duran whispered in his ear as he roughly squeezed his shoulders. “So how about it?”

 

“Take it,” Q breathed out and threw the piece of fabric on the ground like it was on fire, throwing the glass of wine at the other supposed server while Duran was digging desperately through his pockets and turned toward the door, bumping into a muscled chest.

 

Said muscled chest belong to his would-be bedpartner, James wrapping one arm around Q before pulling out a gun and pointing it at Duran. “In hindsight, it makes perfect sense for you to be the mole.”

 

In turn, Duran took out his gun and pointed it at James, Q’s jacket clutched tightly in his free hand. “Do you really think I give a damn about what you use as human shield?” He asked and repointed his gun at Q’s head. “Pretty face, wonderful ideas, but he won’t be missed and I assure you that the second his lifeless body hits the ground, yours will follow not one second later.”

 

James wasted no time in pushing Q behind him, squeezing the arm that was wrapped around his stomach. “I don’t die that easily and I’m rarely alone.”

 

His words were followed by a smoke grenade and he quickly picked Q in his arms, forced him to stick his head under his jacket, and then jumped out the window. A bullet exchange started in the building, but James did not stick around to see the outcome and didn’t need a single moment to push himself back up on his feet, Q still in his arms, and bolted towards a car with a running engine that wasn’t the Aston Martin he had picked him up in and put the pedal to the metal.

 

They were silent for a few long minutes and then Q remembered how to word. “What the bloody hell is going on? Who and what are you? Why was my crappy boss trying to literally kill me? What do all of you people want with me?”

 

James sighed, taking a sharp turn and ducking into an underground garage before turning to face Q and starting to gently hold his hand. “Alec and I are spies working for MI6 and your boss is the actual mole we confused you with.”

 

Oh, he was much too sober for this. Or was he too drunk and dreaming all of this? No, his face, legs, and elbows hurt too much for this to be a drunken dream. “It’s my destiny to end this day in a body bag.”

 

James squeezed his hand. “I won’t let anyone get near you—”

 

“You’re going to have to kill me—”

 

“That only happens in movies—”

 

“The only reason you wanted to sleep with me is because you had to _detain_ me until you got the green light to kill me or whatever!” Q’s voice rang the loudest, his entire body starting to shake. “And make no mistake that the only reason why I’m in the car with you right now is because the only other options were getting tortured and then killed or killed directly and I’m still not sure I’m going to live to see the sky lighting up in the morning.”

 

It was much too late in the year for London to actually get a visit from the sun and God, was that really on what he was supposed to focus right now? Shouldn’t he maybe stop asking himself such questions and figure out which button from the dashboard popped open the doors so he could start running again even though he had no idea where he was and he was pretty sure that he was shaking so hard that his legs would give out from under him the second he touched the ground?

 

“As you are an innocent civilian, I’ll defect before so much as thinking of hurting you,” James said as he draped his suit jacket around his shoulders and started to run his hands up and down his arms. “And I was actually ordered to back down and leave other agents to deal with you, but I found that I really couldn’t.”

 

Maybe it was the adrenaline or the fact that he was still alive, but the kiss James initiated was more than welcomed and easily one of the best ones he’d had in his life. Q felt like James was breathing life back into him and he couldn’t get enough of his warmth or his smoothing gunpowder smell, which was why he was struggling to climb in his lap and why his hands were under the man’s shirt.

 

And he was really making headway, even getting his shaking under control, but then James had to open his mouth and he was right back on the edge of the desperation cliff. “Your apartment is still not safe.” He cupped Q’s face before he could turn away and begin his battle with the door, giving him a peck for good measure. “MI5 is securing it as we speak which means that you have two options: stay with me in a building that’s filled with spies who’ll keep their traps shut about who’s in my apartment until you're truly safe again or let MI6 put you up in one of their very comfortable cells until everything blows over.”

 

At the moment in time, there was really only one option that Q liked the sound of. However, he suspected that the whole thing that happened tonight was related to the USB stick – which he had slipped in his trousers when he realized that something was up with Duran – and as he had tricked Death at least four times in less than four hours, he was curious what would happen.

 

“Well, seeing that I still have this on me,” he said as he waved the USB stick in front of James, "do I really get to choose?”

 


	4. Chapter 4

Though it had been fun having M yell at him for the first whatever years of working for MI6, now it was really getting on his nerves. Every time it was about the same thing and it was always for naught because he never really listened anyway and it was just one huge waste of everyone’s time.

 

“Can’t you just leave me a voicemail and be done with it? I do promise not to delete it right away.” That was clearly not the right thing to say since it delayed his overdo return trip home by two more hours and it landed him with ‘homework’ – aka writing a twenty page report by the end of the week or else be sent to the frozen tundra for two whole months with no access to his agent or civilian funds.

 

But he knew that trying to talk his way out of his punishment would only prolong anything and make things worse so he just nodded and got the hell out of there before M remembered about the two cars that met their untimely ends at his hands even though he wasn’t supposed to come within a mile of them.

 

Driving slowly – because it would be just his luck to get pulled over by an overly ambitious cop that had a certain daily fine quota – got him to actually get stuck in rush hour but he had missed being stuck on some street in London and not is because there was a standstill in a shootout, so things were okay.

 

Of course, when he finally pulled in his building garage three hours later, he wanted to kill everyone and that bloody elevator was still on the fritz from the last attempt on 005 on the 5th floor, he was going to be a very disgruntled tenant and waste MI6’s money on a suit in the Lanesborough.

 

Thankfully, he didn’t bump into any more obstacles and he finally dumped his luggage on the floor in his dark and silent apartment and that instantly got him to switch back to agent mode since he was supposed to at least be greeted by two loud fur balls that wouldn’t leave him alone until they were scratched behind each ear ten times and their food trays filled.

 

He would also stub his toe on the bicycle that was never left in the garage when it was winter because if he got to gush all over his beloved Aston Martin – when he wasn’t on a mission – then he had no right to say anything about anyone’s beloved mode of transportation not being kept in the cold on this crappy weather, even if the garage was heated.

 

The next thing that was odd was the lack of a sultry person on the sofa dressed in nothing but one of his overly large shirts, surrounded by fake, electrical candles and the apartment smelled fresh instead of being drenched in the usual miasma of at least five failed attempts at a dinner and James was no longer in ‘agent mode’ but full on ‘panic mode’.

 

Had he done anything wrong right before he left? Or maybe while he was on the seemingly never ending mission? He’d tripped on one of the fur balls because he was trying to blindly make his way to the kitchen and then landed on the bloody bicycle that really had no reason to get its tires changed in the middle of their apartment, but no fight was started right then and there and since that was the worst thing that happened in the time before the mission, maybe he needed to focus on what happened during the mission.

 

He almost got killed three times, but the Major assured him that it wouldn’t leave his branch and since there were no actual wounds, Medical wasn’t involved and nothing was written down in the final mission record and everything happened between midday and five in the afternoon, so that wasn’t it.

 

His main mission car was totalled but he hadn’t been the one driving it, a building was blown up but it was going to go down in a week or so, no equipment was returned but he had already been punished for that at work and no one at home really cared about this set of technology, he hadn’t slept with anyone because being sympathetic worked surprisingly better than throwing himself in the bed of strangers – which sometimes turned out to be gay, making everything a lot more awkward and hard – and he never really called because he was on the job.

 

However, since this mission lasted two months, James started to see the downside of not calling. “Maybe it’s not too late to call now,” he murmured to himself, holding back from smashing his dead phone against a wall because he had a backup charger in the bedroom – his main one got melted in the fire that he might have accidentally started on day two of his mission.

 

And when he walked into their bedroom, he sighed in relief at the sight that greeted him – a Q wearing nothing but one of his shirts, fast asleep, surrounded by those missing fake candles, cats  purring on his chest while a heavy book was rested on his face.

 

“Middle of exam period.” He always forgot that Q had gone back to finish University because Q had picked up a very dangerous hobby that he couldn’t be talked out of – namely poking his nose in the MI6 severs to give him a helping hand every now and then which is why he was prone to little fits whenever the Major grumbled about having to log in one of his fuck ups.

 

With a soft smile, James began to turn off the candles and then very carefully removed the living suit shredders, not making so much as a peep when the bloody things remembered that he was their favourite scratching post.

 

His struggles not to wake Q up were wasted when he started to gently pull the book off his face and ended up eating a knuckle sandwich. “My boyfriend could kill you without breaking a sweat!” He shouted, stopping from kicking his supposed attacker when he realized just who was bleeding all over the Egyptian cotton sheets. “James, you’re finally home!”

 

A thousand bullets shot his way, swords and knives swung his way, an entire building collapsing _near_ him, two car crashes, and it was his lover that made him bleed – and he couldn’t be happier about it because it meant that the man was still in his life and he had his limbs wrapped around him while trying to find a way to stop his bleeding and kiss him without getting any blood on him.

 

“Good to be back, darling. How’s university life treating—?”

 

“Less talking and most definitely less clothes,” Q interrupted him and pushed him down, tearing his jacket open as he attacked his neck, the cats rethinking their whole ‘coming back in the bedroom’ idea when they almost got hit by an ivory button.

 

“Your wish is my command,” purred James, starting to slowly run his hands up Q’s legs and trying to unbutton his shirt with his teeth.

 

But the universe was against him getting reacquainted with Q that day and the second his trousers were unzipped, someone started to knock at their door, making him question why the bloody hell they had a doorman if he was going to just let everyone up and not call beforehand to see if it was okay or not.

 

“You clearly have to answer that,” Q whispered as he took James’ hands off his ass and placed them on his back. “No, no, you really need to and I promise that I won’t concoct an evil plan while you’re getting rid of the unwanted surprise.”

 

Surprisingly, hearing that relaxed James a lot and made him more willing to get out of bed but not enough to actually get him to move anywhere other than on top of Q. “They can come back later if it’s important and you need me right now.”

 

But the bloody knocking wouldn’t stop and Q was giggling more than moaning, so James really didn’t have a choice but to stomp to the door – ‘At lease put on a robe unless you want to go to jail for flashing’ – okay, he had no choice but to put on a bloody robe and then stomp towards the door, pulling it open with so much force that it almost flew off its hinges.

 

He didn’t get to scream or growl because Alec easily pushed passed him, dumping a six-pack in his arms. “I don’t understand why M stuck _me_ on the missing waiter,” he started to complain and collapsed on the sofa, hissing back at the two cats. “Well, okay, the secret boffin search sounds even more boring than what I do and you can’t be on the waiter mission because you’re kind of compromised because you sort of tried to do him when he wasn’t your mission, but I honestly befriended the little twerp—”

 

“Who are you calling a twerp, you overgrown baboon?” Q asked from the doorway of their bedroom and James made sure to throw himself on top of  Alec to keep him from doing anything other than breathing. “I have an exam coming up in two days and something tells me that the two of you need to have a long conversation.” He leaned over the sofa, covered Alec’s eyes and gave James a quick peck. “I won’t run because you have my cats and a certain other thing.”

 

Q made to pull away, but James easily pulled him in his lap because he’d at least get to snog his lover after two months of nothing but his memories of him. “Well, you too have that certain something, so I won’t let him turn you in.”

 

“Can you two not make out while sitting on top of me? God!”


End file.
